


Ancient of Ways

by onthedriftinthetardis (on_the_drift)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, More Fluff, Nature, Romance, sea turtles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 16:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8541262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_drift/pseuds/onthedriftinthetardis
Summary: The Doctor takes Rose to a far away beach for an encounter with sea turtles.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunaseemoony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/gifts).



> In this story, Ten and Rose are in a (newly) established relationship. Tentoo and Rose are also in an established relationship.
> 
> Many thanks to mountaingirlheidi for her excellent beta services! Any mistakes are my fault.
> 
> Gifted to lunaseemooney for her unabated help and support from my very first story forward, and because she may love sea turtles as much as I do.

Waves curled and crashed endlessly on the shore, raking the topmost layer of sand back towards the sea. Gulls and terns soared quietly overhead. Sea oats swayed in the breeze on the sand dunes between the shore and the lushly vegetated flatland that covered most of the barrier island. A young fox rested in a depression she had dug under a red cedar bush at the edge of the maritime forest. Though nearly sunset, the oppressive heat had kept her there since early morning, but now she raised her head and stiffened as a faint and foreign sound reached her ears. 

A cry like a mechanical whale heralded a mirage that persisted and solidified in the forest on the windward side of the dune. The fox slunk hurriedly away, and the birds cleared the area as a dark blue police box settled into the sand. 

The door opened and out came a young blonde woman in a dark red bikini and white cover-up and a man in a gray T-shirt and a pair of banana print swim trunks. The man held a strange, long, thin cylindrical device in his right hand. They carefully climbed the dune, and as soon as they crested the sandy hill, the man pushed a button on the device that extended a translucent chamber with a spiral structure inside. He twisted a small dial and then pressed another button that started a loud buzzing like a jittery cicada that pierced the sound of the ocean waves, and dissipated across the sea. 

The Doctor extended his right arm and swept the sonic screwdriver through the muggy air, scanning a wide area. He finally concentrated on a direction down the beach to their left. Rose looked at him curiously, shaking her head and smiling when he gave a satisfied hum, collapsing the chamber of the sonic and securing it in the waterproof pocket of his swim trunks. 

He turned to Rose with a grin that made her feel even warmer in the summer heat. “Spot on, first time!” he exclaimed. “C’mon, Rose, _allons-y_!” She rolled her eyes and smiled affectionately at his back as the Doctor slid down the leeward side of the dune on his bare feet. Rose followed more cautiously, half sliding, half stepping her way down, and half stumbling into the Doctor at the bottom of the dune. He caught her, steadied her, and hugged her to him. Rose leaned into his hug, closing her eyes and sighing quietly. 

“I'm going to have to teach you how to glissade,” he murmured, and Rose pulled away enough to frown at him slightly. 

“Teach me how to what?” she asked. 

“Glissade. Slide down a slope of sand or, more usually, snow, on your feet without losing your footing,” explained the Doctor. “Not here, though — we don't want to erode the sand dune any more than we have to.” 

“So what are we doing here? You were awfully cagey earlier when I asked.”

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet and grinned at her, barely able to stop grabbing Rose by the hand and running down the beach with her. “We’re here, specifically, because I’ve detected a large female Loggerhead Sea Turtle approaching this beach. It's time for her to lay her eggs, and for that she'll have to come to shore.”

Rose bit her lip, wondering if large sea turtles were fond of English girls, and if that fondness included trying to take bites out of them. 

The Doctor, sensing a certain hesitancy on her part, rushed to reassure her. “They're big, these mama turtles, but don't worry — they're single-minded about the egg laying. As long as you keep your hands away from her sharp bits, she won't hurt you.”

“All right,” Rose nodded. “I’m game. And I've never seen a sea turtle before. I did like the ones in Finding Nemo.”

“Those were Loggerheads, too!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Maybe we'll meet Crush’s mum,” he chortled, bumping Rose’s hip with his. 

Rose shook her head and smiled at him. 

They started to wander down the beach, hand in hand, watching the fluffy cumulus clouds over the ocean turn pink as the sun set over the sound side of the island, off to their left. Rose waded waist-deep into the surf while the Doctor waited. She called for him to join her, crooking a finger enticingly. The Doctor relented, quickly removing his T-shirt and setting it down above the high tide line. He waded in after her and took her hand in his, but she turned and threw her arms around his neck. He pulled her close and leaned down, kissing her softly. Rose sighed against his mouth and he deepened the kiss, swallowing her moans. Rose slipped her tongue inside his mouth and ran her fingers through his hair. 

Reluctantly, the Doctor pulled back, breathing heavily. Rose gave a small whine of protest. 

“Sorry,” the Doctor apologized. “I just don't want you to miss what I brought you here for. Rain check?”

Rose ran a hand through her hair and sighed. She felt in that moment that she would have traded the opportunity to see all the turtles in the world to continue what they were doing, but she knew he would be disappointed to miss out on showing her something new and marvelous. 

“Right. Where to next, then?” she managed gracefully. 

He beamed at her and took her hand again. “Not far now! C’mon.” He tugged her along after him out of the water, and she waited while he pulled on his T-shirt. He waggled his fingers at her, and grinning, she joined hands with him, and they walked down the beach.

The deep blue-green water darkened to purple and the sand to gray, and the whole scene lost its color as dusk deepened into night. The moon was nearly full, though, and hung above the sea like a lantern. The stars came out, awash in moonlight but still visible in the clear sky, and the Doctor pointed out four planets, which outshone the stars. 

The Doctor halted suddenly and dropped to his knees, motioning for Rose to do the same. He removed a black gadget from his trunks, about twice the size of his sonic screwdriver, and held it up to one eye. He adjusted a couple of dials on top, grinned, and handed it to Rose. 

“You see that dark shape about mid-way up that dune?” he pointed. She nodded. “Keep your eyes on that, and raise the scope to one eye.”

Rose did as he instructed, and gasped. The shadowy figure was now illuminated as if it were daytime under a green sun: a huge sea turtle was digging a hole in the side of the dune, seemingly close enough for her to touch. As Rose watched, the enormous carapace began to disappear in the sand, until only the head and front flippers of the turtle remained visible. The ancient animal turned her head towards Rose, and blinked. Rose lowered the night scope and turned to the Doctor in amazement. 

“She just looked straight at me!” she exclaimed. The Doctor smiled at her indulgently. Rose frowned. “No?”

“Sea turtles don't have very good vision, I'm afraid, especially out of the water. She might have heard you move, though,” he added. 

Rose handed him the scope, and he took a quick look before giving it back to her. “Try again — she's laying her eggs now.”

Rose immediately brought the infrared scope up to her eye, but she didn't see anything that resembled egg-laying going on. 

“How can you tell?” she asked. 

“See how every few seconds her front flippers move? Every time she does that, she's covering an egg.”

They sat on the sand, Rose with her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, and he with his arm around her, and watched over the mother for the better part of an hour while she deposited some 90 eggs. They talked quietly, Rose asking questions and the Doctor answering them, until the Doctor placed a hand on her shoulder and held out his other hand for the night scope. He peered through the device intently for a moment, then gave it back to Rose. 

“Look again, Rose — she's covering up the nest now. She'll be done in a few minutes, and then she'll make a beeline for the sea, so to speak — welllll, a turtleline, really. As soon as she starts back to the ocean, we can follow her, and see if she's tagged. Loggerheads are tagged or microchipped worldwide, and they travel long distances — she could be from anywhere!” he enthused. 

Rose caught his excitement and eagerly looked through the night scope. Sure enough, more of the turtle was visible now, and as she watched, the mother moved more and more sand over her nest with her powerful flippers. Before she knew it, the turtle was moving down the beach. “She's off, Doctor!” Rose cried, and he grabbed her free hand and started running towards the mother turtle, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his bigger-on-the-inside pockets. He shone it on the back of the turtle as they approached her, a bright red light, to Rose's surprise. 

“No tags on the back — hold on!” he exclaimed, leaping to the turtle's front and quickly scanning the base of her flipper. The sonic made a happy trilling noise, and the turtle moved even faster towards the water. The Doctor withdrew, but still shone the red light on her as she entered the shallow waves. Rose gently touched her barnacle-covered carapace as she passed by, feeling the rough shell slip under her fingers. 

“Ha!” crowed the Doctor. “She's microchipped! We can find out all about her later. Look at her go!” he cried happily, and they both watched in awe as the nearly meter-long Loggerhead made her way deeper into the waves before all four flippers were free of the sandy bottom, and she disappeared gracefully into the sea. Rose leaned into the Doctor's side, wrapping an arm around him, and he put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her closer to him. She raised her free hand and waved in the direction the turtle had disappeared. 

“Thank you for bringing me here, Doctor.” said Rose, looking up at him with shining eyes. “Was incredible,” she smiled. 

He beamed at her, raising his eyebrows in question. “Did you really like it, then?”

“Yeah, ‘course I did. I mean, I always love seeing new things with you, but it amazes me how much there is here on my own planet. We are on Earth, aren't we?”

“It’s the third New Earth, actually. Your species finally figured out how to re-home the sea turtles, and saved them from extinction. You're brilliant, you are! Enough of you cared, and worked so hard to save as many other species as you could. You saved all the sea turtle species but one,” he continued somberly. 

“Oh no! Which one?” Rose said, upset. 

“The Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle. They were just too far gone, and besides, they nested during the day, which made them easy targets,” the Doctor lamented. 

Rose rubbed his back soothingly. He sighed and hugged her to his chest. 

“In six or eight weeks, this nest will hatch. Would you like to come back to see the hatchlings make their run to the sea?” he said hopefully. 

Rose kissed his neck. “I would like that very much,” she said quietly. “Shower and nap first?” she suggested. 

“Mmm,” he murmured, and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, lingered on her temples, and finally met her lips with his own, kissing her tenderly. Rose sighed against his mouth, and slipped her tongue along his bottom lip, caressed his soft upper lip, and moaned as he entered her mouth, sweeping his tongue across her sensitive palate. He withdrew and leaned his forehead against hers, panting slightly. “And between the showers and naps, maybe we could… “

“Yeah, absolutely, yeah!” said Rose emphatically with a wide smile. 

The Doctor grinned back. “ _Molto bene_!” he agreed, and after storing away the night scope and his sonic, he took her hand and they ran all the way back to the TARDIS. 

***

Much later, the Doctor, back in his brown suit, plugged his sonic screwdriver into its interface socket in the TARDIS console. There was a “blip” from the monitor, and he swung it around so that Rose, standing beside him dressed in her usual jeans and hoodie, could also see. 

“Her name is Buttercup, she’s about 80 years old, and she’s laid three nests on this beach before, that they know of.”

“Buttercup? They name the turtles? Aww, what a sweet name!”

“They do if they have to bring them in to a sea turtle hospital. Looks like Buttercup was cold-stunned two years ago, and they had to take her to the local one for several weeks.”

“Poor Buttercup!” Rose commiserated, looking at the photo on the screen of the turtle in question in an enormous blue tank.

“Yeah, must have been a bad year for them, for such a large turtle to be affected. Cold-stunning happens when there’s a sudden drop in the water temperature, and the turtles, who are exothermic, of course, can’t adjust to the change. It’s like a human getting hypothermia — it can be very serious if they don’t get treatment. Most cold-stunned turtles in the wild don’t make it, especially the smaller ones.”

Rose gave a little cry of sympathy, and the Doctor wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Look, though! Look, look! Buttercup was given a nice warm tank and treated for the cataracts they often develop when they’re cold-stunned, and fed up nicely, and was released seven weeks after they brought her in.”

Rose nodded and flicked the monitor to the next screen, a photo of Buttercup the sea turtle being released back to the ocean by six rather muscular-looking young people. “I’m glad she was all right,” she said, leaning against the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Yup! Right as rain. See, she was back here the next year, laying a nest! Seventy-six baby turtles hatched and got to the sea. And even more eggs this year! Ready to go see them hatch?” he waggled his eyebrows at her with an expectant smile, and she grinned at him.

The Doctor ran a series of scans, and settled on a night six weeks, four days into the future. “Oooh, we might be… yes, I think we are going to be lucky — looks like the best chance for the eggs to hatch is at sunset, so you’ll be able to see them much, much better than you would at night.” He programmed in the time and date, and began the frantic dance around the console to start the TARDIS on her way. Every so often, he pointed at a knob or lever and told Rose to push or pull the control in question. He was always too fixated on piloting the time ship to explain what the controls were, in the moment, and Rose usually forgot to ask him afterwards. 

Still, Rose enjoyed being included in the driving, a vast improvement over his early proprietary attitude towards everything in the control room, down to the coat stand and the jump seat. Rose blushed, remembering how they had used the jump seat just last week. “ _He didn’t mind sharing then_ ,” she thought with a smirk. 

The Doctor noticed her smirk and looked at her askance. “What?” he demanded.

Rose just bit her lip to stop herself laughing as they materialized back at the beach.

“Right,” the Doctor continued determinedly. “It’s a bit cooler than before, so what you have on now should be fine,” he said. He strode through the door, holding it open for his companion. 

It was considerably cooler than it was the last time — September on the beach had warm days but cooler nights, and even now, with sunset several minutes off, Rose tugged the hoodie she wore even closer about her shoulders. They crossed the dunes and down onto the beach. 

The Doctor caught her hand in his and swung their joined hands in an arc as they walked through the soft sand and down to the harder sand below the tide line. He was humming happily, and Rose smiled at him and leaned into his side, full of affection for him. 

They had walked perhaps a hundred yards when the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning the soft sand at the side of the dune to the west. He seemed satisfied with the readings, because they headed back up through the soft sand to a foot-wide depression in the dune. The Doctor sonicked the shallow hole on a quieter than usual setting and turned to Rose with a wide smile. 

“There's movement under there — the turtles are hatching!” he enthused, squeezing Rose's hand. 

She caught his excitement and grinned back at him. “How long until they come out of the nest, then?” she asked. 

“Not long now! Maybe half an hour? We can sit, if you like,” he said, taking his coat off and laying it down on the sand a few yards away, towards the surfline. He sat down cross-legged near the collared end of the coat and patted the cloth in front of him. 

Rose acquiesced, sitting down in front of him. The Doctor placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed, and she could feel his ebullience through his fingers. They sat there watching the clouds grow pink, lit by the sunset behind them, alone together except for a couple of joggers that passed them by. Rose leaned back against the Doctor, resting her head on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, entwining their hands and arms. The waning gibbous moon became visible before them, growing brighter in the twilight. 

Every few minutes, the Doctor scanned the nest with his sonic, checking for movement at ground level. After the third scan, he nudged Rose forward, urging her to get up. 

“It's the hatchlings, they're emerging!” 

Rose, who had been nodding off, started and sat up, looking towards the nest excitedly. 

“Come on!” he whispered loudly, standing up in one smooth motion and extending his hand towards Rose. 

She took his hand, allowing herself to be pulled to a standing position, and followed him as he quickly and carefully approached the nest. A tiny turtle, not three inches long, struggled out of the sandy hole and began flopping its way towards the sea. Rose watched, mesmerized, until the Doctor nudged her, and she turned her attention back to him, and he nodded towards the nest. 

One turtle had become many, a dozen hatchlings striving towards the light of the sunset pink sky. The babies boiled out of the nest and down, one after another, to the shoreline. The perfect miniature turtles formed a path of crescent-shaped tracks, expanding in a wider arc as they approached the waves, and silently slipped into the sea.

A few of the little creatures strayed too far from the path, and the Doctor and Rose gently guided them back on track. One lone turtle escaped their notice until, with a cry, Rose ran over and shooed away a ghost crab that had nearly gotten hold of it. She picked the baby up by the edges of its shell, carried it down to the shoreline, watching her step carefully to be sure she didn't step on any other hatchlings, and set it down a few feet from the water. The baby turtle immediately flopped its way towards the ocean, and was soon covered by the waves and was gone. 

Rose turned to watch the rest of the hatchlings paddle their way through the soft sand, down to the surf and into the waves that carried them out to the open ocean.

When the Doctor saw that all of the turtles were gone, he strode over to Rose and caught her up in a hug. 

“That was amazing!” she said in an elated tone, and his smile washed over her. 

“They're off to ride the gyre, the massive current that runs through the ocean here, and then perhaps drop off to the Sargasso Sea, an area named after a similar one on Earth with lots of sargassum seaweed. The hatchlings can ride on the seaweed, hide in it, find food in it — it's an all-purpose, do-it-yourself turtle survival kit!” The Doctor started waving his arms about in his excitement. 

Rose grinned, captured his arms and slid her hands down them until they were holding hands again, then stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips. 

Turtle survival forgotten, the Doctor kissed her back softly, slowly, lingering on the surge of affection he could sense from her, her emotions so overpowering he didn't need to enter her mind to feel them. His hearts pounded, and his respiratory bypass had nearly kicked in when Rose pulled back, flushed and breathless. 

“Sorry, what were you saying?” 

“I've no idea,” said the dazed-looking Doctor. 

“Back to the TARDIS?” she suggested, gently tugging his hands in the direction of the blue box that was home. 

“Back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor said with a wink and a grin. 

Rose laughed, and together they ran back to the best ship in the Universe. 

 

Part II

It was a chilly night on New Earth III, and had it not been for the blanket of clouds quilting the sky, the full moon would have made the beach bright and stark, as opposed to the diffuse light that bathed the sand now. The Doctor was waiting, sitting on a beach chair next to a turtle nest. He had been there for over an hour, but despite the suggestive depression in the sand, there had been no sign of movement since he’d gotten there. Glumly, he scanned the nest again. Nothing. He sighed, and got up to stretch his legs.

He walked down to the shoreline, and then along it for a few minutes, before turning around and heading back to the nest. He scanned the nest again, then sat down to wait. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to Rose. It had been nearly eight months since he had left her with his duplicate in Pete’s World, and he had thought he’d come to terms with losing her — not that he would ever be over her, but the pain had diminished to something bearable — and now he was back where he had some of his favorite memories of her, which were among the most painful to recall. Why had he come here?

He sat there, head in his hands, scanning the nest occasionally, until he noticed that he was being watched. A pretty young blonde woman stood a respectful distance away from him, holding the hand of a small child. The woman was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and looked to be about Rose’s age. His chest constricted so that he could hardly breathe, and he nearly didn’t notice the child pulling at the woman’s hand and peering curiously at him, and then at the nest. The child was pretty and blonde as well, and it struck him painfully that she could have been his own, his and Rose’s, if such a thing had been possible: it might be possible for the version of himself he had left with her on that cursed beach. But he would never know. He tried to smile at the woman and child, but felt it had to look strained.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” said the woman, “But my daughter was curious about what you’re doing. Is that a turtle nest?”

“Yes, yes it is,” the Doctor said.

“And you’re waiting for it to hatch?”

“That’s right.”

“I knew it, Mummy!” the child interjected. She broke away from her mother’s grip, and ran towards the Doctor and the nest.

“Easy does it!” The Doctor held up a hand to stop her as she got close to the nest. The little girl stopped where she was, and carefully walked the last few feet. 

“When are they going to hatch?” The girl asked quietly, suddenly shy.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied. “Could be any time now, or in the next few days.”

“And you’re going to wait here that whole time?!” The girl sounded impressed with how crazy he was. 

He smiled, genuinely this time. “Nah, I’ll give them another hour or so. I’ve got things to do, people to meet, places to be!”

“Oh. Can I watch with you?”

“Absolutely!” the Doctor said, “As long as it’s all right with your mum,” he added as an afterthought.

The girl turned toward her mother excitedly. “Can I, mummy?”

“Not for an hour, but we can stay a little while,” her mother allowed.

“Welcome! Here, have a seat,” the Doctor said, offering up his chair to the woman. “I'm the Doctor, by the way.”

The woman gratefully sat in the chair. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“At the moment, I'm a doctor of herpetology, but please just call me the Doctor.” 

“I'm Lucy, and this is Robin.”

“Pleased to meet you, Lucy and Robin.”

The Doctor sat near the nest on his coat tails, and motioned Robin to sit down on the other side of the nest. They all sat there waiting, the Doctor alternating between scanning the nest and answering Lucy and Robin’s many questions about sea turtles. Robin looked like she was starting to doze off when the Doctor's scan revealed movement just below the surface of the nest. 

“They're moving! They should hatch any moment now,” he enthused, rising to his knees. “No light at all now, the hatchlings need to go towards the brightest light, and that's got to be the moon!”

Not more than two minutes later, a turtle scrambled through the last of the sand covering the nest and immediately started flopping its way towards the moon and the shore. Another hatchling climbed out of the nest and followed the path of the first turtle, and then three more emerged at the same time. 

“She's starting to boil!” said the Doctor, in a great state of excitement that made Lucy smile and Robin giggle. “Watch your feet now if you have to move, so you don't step on anyone.”

The three of them, two humans and a Time Lord, watched in wonder as dozens of turtles climbed out of the sand, and over each other, before heading down to the sea. They watched as each hatchling entered the water, and disappeared under the waves. The Doctor counted 96 hatchlings — an extremely good hatch. 

“Oh yes!” He exclaimed as the last tiny turtle flip flopped its way down the beach and into the vast ocean. He cupped his hands around his mouth like a bullhorn. “Bon Voyage!” He shouted with a wild grin. Lucy and Robin grinned at the Doctor's antics. 

“All right, time to go home and sleep,” said Lucy, staring pointedly at her daughter. Robin immediately yawned, then covered her mouth with both hands. 

“I'm not tired! She proclaimed. 

“Good, I don't want to have to carry you home,” said Lucy wryly. “It was lovely meeting you, um…“

“Doctor. Lovely meeting you as well, Lucy, Robin.” 

“Well, goodbye,” Lucy said, beckoning to her daughter. 

“One moment.” The Doctor put his hands in his trouser pockets, and after fishing around for a few seconds, came up with a paper bag, unfurled the top, and held it out to Robin. “Would you care for a jelly baby?” 

Robin looked at her mother, who nodded. She reached into the bag, picked a yellow one out, and popped it in her mouth. 

“I just got them a few days ago. I used to love them, but my taste buds have changed, and I don't really like them any more,” he sighed. “Do you like them?” he asked Robin hopefully. 

Robin nodded, and the Doctor folded the bag closed again and handed it to Lucy. 

“Thank you, Doctor. Very nice of you. Robin?”

“Thank you, Doctor!” the girl smiled. 

Lucy held her hand out, and Robin ran over and took it, and the two of them started walking away down the beach. 

The Doctor watched them for a moment, then threw his coat on, and turned and started walking toward the TARDIS. 

A ghost crab scuttled across his path, but other than that there was no sign of animal life. He took the first beach access point he came across, and was halfway down the boardwalk when he suddenly got a whiff of an achingly familiar scent. He stopped and looked to the side, where a large cluster of wild beach roses was in bloom. Rose had loved the smell of her namesake flowers, and he had once given her a cutting of wild roses for her room. He leaned over and inhaled the fragrance deeply. He closed his eyes and allowed the memory to wash over him: her smile, her “thank you” kiss, her rearranging her make-up things on her dresser to make room for the vase, her hand in his, leading him to the bed they had shared all too briefly. 

He let out a shuddering breath as he straightened up and opened his eyes. Rose was gone, safely tucked away in another universe where he would never see her again, and he was alone. He looked back at the beach, at the figures of Robin and her mother disappearing into the night, and then at where they had watched the hatchlings enter the sea. He hoped that wherever Rose was, and whatever she was doing, she was happy. He hoped she was happy with his duplicate self, that she’d been able to forgive him, forgive both of them, for what he had done. Leaving her had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, in a long lifetime of difficult choices. He turned around and walked back to the TARDIS. He would never know, but he would always hope that a part of him had finally found what he wanted most, but could never have: an extraordinary human life with Rose.

Part III

It was cool on the beach, but the night was bright under the full moon, and Rose's hand in his was warm and soft. They were lying on an enormous beach towel near the dunes, and the turtle nest that was half buried in the sloping sand. He turned and sonicked the nest over his shoulder. 

“Anything?” said Rose, curling up against the Doctor’s side, her palm sliding up his chest to rest over his heart.

“They’re stirring underneath, but I’m not sure how long it’ll be before they hatch,” he replied, clasping his free hand over hers.

“Mmm. What time is it?” she asked sleepily. 

“Half past two. We've been out here for nearly five hours!” He sounded mildly outraged, as if the turtles were deliberately staying in their nest just to thwart him. 

Rose smiled, but almost immediately it faltered. She tried to school her voice into nonchalance. “Always wait five hours,” she murmured. 

The Doctor's heart stuttered and clenched as he remembered saying the same thing to her once, long ago. Not long enough for her pain or his guilt to fade completely, it seemed. He hugged her tightly, and kissed her hair. 

“Rose… I will always come for you. Always.”

“S’alright,” she reassured him. “I know _you_ will.” 

They had talked through his “temporary insanity,” as she sometimes referred to it, before they had become intimate. And she had forgiven him for what was really a celebrity crush gone too far, she really had. But even after all this time, an unexpected reference to Madame de Pompadour could still give her a twinge of insecurity. And after his counterpart had left her in this universe without even saying goodbye, overcoming her natural feelings of abandonment had been one of the most difficult things for them to work through. But both of them had wanted quite desperately to be with each other again, and so they had worked through them. 

The Doctor stroked her back soothingly for a few minutes, until he felt her head drooping against his chest. She was falling asleep. 

“Rose?” he murmured. “Are you falling asleep?”

“Noooo,” came a sleepy voice. 

Well, that wouldn't do, what with turtles about to hatch!

“Look up there,” he urged, dislodging her from his chest a bit as he pointed up at a group of stars, unfamiliar to her, as they were on a planet far distant from Earth. 

“Hmmm?” Rose responded as she looked up where he was pointing. 

“You see that bright blue star and the fainter red one? See how they form a sort of hexagonal shape, the carapace of a turtle, with those other four stars?” 

When Rose murmured her assent, he continued, “The locals call it Kurma, after an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. The gods had lost their immortality, and their divine powers, and to get them back, Vishnu transformed into a massive sea turtle. He bore a mountain on his back, and churned the ocean of milk until thirteen precious things emerged, and then finally, the physician of the gods, who had the nectar of immortality.”

“And that's how the gods got their immortality back?” Rose asked, only slightly more awake. 

“Wellll, there was a lot more to the story, because it's Hindu mythology, and there always is. But that's the gist of it.”

Rose furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “So what happened to all the butter?”

The Doctor's laugh burst out of him, and he hugged her close. “Rose Tyler, you are the wonder of my existence.” 

Rose looked up at him and smiled, but tapped his chest with her forefinger. “That means you don't know the answer, doesn't it?”

The Doctor huffed at this, and looked over his shoulder to sonic the nest again. His jaw dropped, and he sat up, pulling Rose up with him. 

“The nest has hatched!” He looked wildly between the nest and the sea, and cried out, “Look, they're off!” He pointed at the wide arc of little creatures flapping gamely down the beach towards the moon. 

They scrambled to their feet, and carefully moved a little closer. 

“They're so tiny!” whispered Rose in amazement. “These aren't the same kind of turtle we saw before, are they? 

The Doctor grinned. “Well spotted, Rose! These aren't Loggerheads, they're Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles.”

“What? But I thought…. They went extinct in the other universe, but somehow they're all right in this one, aren't they?”

The Doctor nodded. “More people cared about them here, I suppose. Some things are better here,” he said quietly. 

Rose turned toward him, and found him looking at her intently. Her heart sped up, and heat radiated out from her center. 

He stepped in front of her and in one smooth movement, ran his fingers into her hair and pulled her into a deep kiss, swallowing her low moan. He echoed her as she hooked her fingers into his waistband, pulling his hips against hers. 

A long moment later, Rose broke off the kiss, and turned to see the last of the turtles paddle across the last few yards of sandy beach to the ocean. She wrapped her arms around him and tilted her head back to smile up at him, tongue slipping out to touch the edge of her teeth. “You're right, Doctor; some things are better here.”

He smiled back, and kissed her again, nipping teasingly at her lower lip, then soothing it with his tongue. He pulled back to look at her. 

“TARDIS?” 

“Do you think she's ready to take off again so soon? This is only her first trip this far.”

“Who said anything about taking off?” He waggled his eyebrows.

She laughed, and grabbing his hand, led him back to their young time ship.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sea turtles, particularly the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle, are in trouble, and that's no fiction. If you would like to help, contact the sea turtle hospital nearest to you, or check out one of the organizations that helps to reduce overharvesting, illegal trade, and habitat loss, and works to minimize the effects of climate change. One good one is WWF: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sea-turtle.


End file.
